The ACA blog provides readers with information to help them advance their knowledge, achieve their professional goals and strive for excellence, while also creating a greater sense of community among chiropractors nationwide through online engagement and information-sharing with their colleagues.

ACA blogs! How about you? For ACA's editorial policy and guidelines for writers, click here.

*Member-Exclusive Content* With the burgeoning opioid epidemic serving as backdrop, the Integrative Health and Wellness Caucus (IHWC) held its inaugural meeting March 15 on Capitol Hill. The Caucus was founded by Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) with the goal of providing a non-partisan educational forum to increase understanding of how shifting the focus in health care to prevention and health promotion can create cost savings and improve health outcomes for Americans.

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) hosted a historic Stakeholder Collaborative Forum on Jan. 26 at Northwestern Health Sciences University to delve deeper into the current market need for chiropractors in combating the opioid crisis as well as issues related to chiropractors working within or in collaboration with hospitals and health systems. Michele Maiers, DC, PhD, facilitated the meeting with the primary goal to identify industry trends and how to position members to be successful. Several qualities were identified and work groups were established to help guide ACA in the creation of toolkits we can provide for our members.

Back pain remains a persistent and debilitating problem for many people in the United States and around the world. News that the opioid crisis in America has been fueled in part by the overprescribing of pain medications for low back pain amplifies the need for the chiropractic profession to continue spreading its message about the value of a conservative approach to back pain treatment. To this end, National Chiropractic Health Month (NCHM) goes “Back to Basics” this year by focusing on overall health and injury prevention as key strategies in maintaining spinal health throughout a lifetime—and highlighting the growing body of research supporting a conservative approach to back pain treatment.

It’s pretty difficult to open up a newspaper these days without seeing an article on the devastating public health impact of the opioid epidemic in the United States. While there appears to be general agreement on the scope of the problem, there is less consensus regarding what can be done to solve it. Policy-makers and professional associations taking on this challenge have tended to focus on mortality statistics and/or expert opinion. These are obviously critically important pieces of the puzzle but it is also important to take a patient-centered approach. To facilitate discussion on this important topic, Gallup held a research release event on Sept. 12 in Washington, D.C., titled “Addressing the Opioid Epidemic With Drug-Free Pain Management.”

*Member-Exclusive Content* In February 2017, the American College of Physicians (ACP) published a guideline calling for both physicians and patients to consider non-pharmacological options first when treating acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain (LBP). Specifically, it recommends superficial heat, massage, acupuncture, and spinal manipulation for acute and subacute LBP, and exercise, tai chi, yoga, spinal manipulation and progressive relaxation for chronic LBP.

Chiropractors are part of the solution to opioid addiction, high costs of spinal pain treatment and health care collaboration.

The chiropractic profession must take bold, innovative steps forward and collaborate with other professions to make an impact on some of the major challenges and trends in health care, according to speakers featured at the opening session of DC2017 in Washington, D.C., last week. The lineup of thought leaders from both inside and outside the profession challenged chiropractors to examine what they could do as a profession and individually to meet the needs of a society struggling with spinal pain, painkiller addiction and runaway health care costs.